MCC president Phillip Hodson is seeking face-to-face talks with Sir John Major
to try to limit the damaging impact of the former Prime Minister’s withering
criticism of the Lord’s leadership.

Hodson and club chairman Oliver Stocken are battling to shore up the credibility of the club’s leadership in the wake of Major’s claims about their management.

In a letter, first revealed by Telegraph Sport on Wednesday, Major accuses Hodson and the club of repeatedly misrepresenting his views to the members, of traducing his reputation, and of rigging committees to ensure a major redevelopment of the ground did not go ahead.

Major, who resigned from the main committee last December, copied the letter to all of its 20 members and demanded that it also be sent to all full and senior members of the club so that they are clear as to his reasons for stepping down.

Hodson has not yet authorised full circulation of the letter, and is unlikely to do so until he has talked to Major.

Major quit the committee after it voted not to proceed with the redevelopment, known as the Vision for Lord’s.

Major’s reason, made clear to Stocken and Hodson at the time, was that he was unhappy at the way the decision was reached rather than the decision itself.

In a letter to more than 10,000 club members last month, however, Hodson said Major had resigned because he was unhappy with the decision itself. This prompted Major’s stinging response.

“I fear that your letter totally misrepresents the reason for my resignation from the main committee,” he wrote.

“I did not resign over the decision to abandon the Vision for Lord’s, even though I believe it is a serious mistake the Club may come to regret. I resigned due to the manner in which this decision was reached.

“Although I have kept my own counsel, others have not. I have found the reason for my resignation repeatedly misrepresented in the media, and now in your letter to members.

“This episode has been damaging - to the MCC purse, and our reputation. This is not the way our club should be run.”

Major’s attack on the governance of the club poses a direct challenge to the leadership of Hodson and Stocken, and comes as they prepare to press ahead with a fundamental restructuring of the club.

They will have a chance to gauge the mood among members on Monday night, when they are due to present proposals and face questions about the proposed restructuring of the club under a Royal Charter.

The issue will also be raised at the club’s annual meeting on May 2, when the issue of the redevelopment will be on the agenda.

There was a mix of views among members canvassed by this newspaper on Wednesday, with some feeling Major’s criticisms were a resignation issue for the leadership, while others felt the chairman and president would have support.

The main committee voted 18-2 to abandon the Vision, which Stocken’s supporters say was effectively a vote of confidence in his leadership.

Dr Nigel Knott, a prominent MCC member who has been a critic of the club leadership in the past, described the suggestion that the chairman or president should resign as “laughable”. He also described Major’s response as “peevish”.

“The latest publicity generated by the presence of Sir John Major at Lord’s is unwelcome,” Knott said. “His peevish outburst over the way he has been treated by MCC and the high-risk ground development plans seems to me like sour grapes.”